Comps & Social Liberal Coups

So a few years ago my advisor met with a colleague and offered her an easy way out because he was sick of dealing with her, and he wanted to get her through her comps and out the door. I thought the offer he gave her sounded good to me, and I wanted something easy like he offered her. Then we met. Then he offered me the OTHER comp structure. Told me it'd be better for me, and it would be more "appropriate". Damnit. So then I stalled. I was stuck and asked for help, and sent him a very long email saying all of this and being nice about it.

He wrote back: Just Do It.

Goddamn it, Am I friggin' NIKE Ad??!! No, I am a person. I didn't talk to him for a year. We met Tuesday. He looked good. Asked about the kid and made idle chit chat. Told me that almost everyone I had worked with graduated already (didn't mention that I started before them all). Then I told him I was ready to work. He told me that I work too fast (DID I MENTION I TOOK A YEAR OFF?!???).

Anyway, so then surprise surprise, he offered me the same get-the-hell-outta-here-comp-structure! Woohoo. So now I needed to get moving and get done with all of this. Someone yesterday said "What're you going to do when you're done?" ....

My answer was, “nothing I am not doing now.” I love what I am doing. I like coming home, playing with the kid, hanging with my wife, blogging, taking out the trash, yelling at the dog, and sleeping at 9:30PM. Everyone said it. When you have a kid, your aspirations change. Mine did. I never thought they would. I am ready to have my daughter change the world. I am done. I am going to stay here and educate the next generation to takeover the world. A social liberal coup from the far left is the only thing I really want.

Then here's my office. I have migrated to the living room and my house is small. The office became a catch-all when the catch-all became nursery last year. For 10 months I had to climb Everest to get to our network printer. Now I can walk again and see the floor! And my wife hates (utterly hates) when I go elsewhere to work (doesn't she remember that I spent an entire year living in a coffee shop to do my Masters?). She instead of purchasing an ostentatiously large non-existent piece of office furniture to fit along the only wall without windows and book cases in the office, she said she wants to make me a study! A study! For Me! Of course I told her that she could not bitch about my listening to music with the door closed when she's screaming my name because the baby has eaten dog food. She needs to politely come and knock on the door while extracting the drool covered kibble from our kid's throat while trying to remember that she's pumped in over $25,000.00 into this degree and she'll kill me if I don't ever finish. Ah, education and young love.